Airport Limo Awaits

This weekend I flew from Billy Bishop Airport in Toronto. I left from work and it took me twelve minutes to get there.

I'll just repeat that. Twelve minutes. I took my bicycle. I rode South on Strachan Avenue for a few minutes, then the rest of the way was bicycle path. Then I parked/locked my ride and flew away. When I landed, I took a bus and then walked straight to my host's door. Simple.

When I arrived back in Toronto I left the terminal, waded through the crowds waving for cabs or getting aboard the shuttle to Union Station, ambled to my bike, unlocked it, loaded it up and rode away. 15 minutes later, I was home. No gas. No parking fees. It's a rare and fine opportunity that makes so much sense I wish all inter-city travel was that easy.

The time before that, I left from Pearson International. The pre-arranged car service cost $65 to the airport and for a pre-arranged pick-up on the way home it cost $75. Those combined rates were almost what my flight this weekend cost. Food for thought.

Pudding from Heaven

Keep your manna from heaven. I'll take this pudding from heaven. It combines classic British cookery with special homegrown ingredients. I'm thinking this satisfies some version of a "100-mile diet" classification.

There and Back 

Commercial for EF International Language Centers

It's so odd to travel so far so easily. Air travel must be one of the most powerful forces in our modern world. Spreading people, ideas, commerce and viruses faster than ever in our history. I work for a company that not only uses a powerful video conferencing system, we also sell it. I'll even go on record about how surprisingly convincing it is to sit in front of a television talking to a video of someone and feel that somehow, you're in the same room. As sophisticated as that is, it doesn't really replace being there, shaking a hand or breaking bread with other people. I guess it's not meant as a kind of simulcrum but the idea is it'll replace phone conversations at some point. But it won't replace flight, driving, traveling to be somewhere else.
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Seen in October

Submarine, like a Welsh Juno and/or Rushmore, image via Mubi

The best films I saw thus month were on a plane. Most everything else I watched were television streamed from online sources (Parks & Recreation, Modern Family, Community, Prime Suspect etc). A sign of the times perhaps. TV is dead — long live TV.

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